


floweret

by Anonymous



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Bisexual Changkyun, Falling In Love, Flowers, Fluff, M/M, Monsta X Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 04:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17615267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The first time Jooheon sees Changkyun, he buys carnations.





	floweret

**Author's Note:**

> for monsta x winter bingo
> 
> card a: flower shop

i.

The first time Jooheon sees Changkyun, he buys carnations.

Fifteen minutes before closing, the shop door swings open, bell tinkling softly. His black hair is a windswept disarray of snowflakes. A pair of tangled earphones dangle around his tattooed neck, his hands tucked into the pockets of his distressed jacket. He wastes no time in perusing the flower displays.

Jooheon is always stuck with the late shift, so he sees all kinds of people rush in, looking for gifts last minute; pink carnations for lovers’ quarrels, elaborate bouquets for funerals, roses for forgotten birthdays and anniversary presents. Jooheon stares at him from across the room and tries to decipher what kind of customer he is.

Under the fluorescent lights of the flower cooler, Jooheon notices the purple underneath his eyes and the faintest shadow of stubble on his upper lip. A poorly hidden hickey dots the underside of his jaw, splotchy and red.

Jooheon puts his bets on an angry significant other.

The customer picks up a bundle of carnations. He walks over to the register, boots squeaking in the melting snow on the tile floors, and sets them down on the counter. He pulls his earbuds out of his ears. Jooheon hears the fuzzy hum of a pulsing beat.

“Are carnations a good flower for apologizing?” the customer asks.

After working here part-time for the last three years, Jooheon has gotten pretty good at this game.

“Depends what you’re apologizing for,” he says.

“I pissed off my boyfriend,” the customer says bluntly, taking out his wallet. “Again.”

Jooheon gives the flowers a once over. He thinks for a moment. “They're red. Red usually means love.”

“Like, eternal love?”

“Something like that.”

The customer rubs at the back of his neck, unsure. “I don’t know if I want it to be that binding.”

“We have white ones in the back if you’d rather something more innocent,” Jooheon deadpans.

The customer shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Red is fine.”

He pays and Jooheon packs the tulips away in brown paper wrapping, tying a twine string around it. He fastens it into a bow and nudges it across the counter.

“Good luck,” Jooheon says. He smiles, dimples pocketing his cheeks.

The customer smiles tightly back at him, running a hand through his snow dampened hair. He eyes Jooheon’s name tag.

“Thanks, Jooheon,” he says.

“You’re welcome.”

“My name is Changkyun.”

“You’re welcome, Changkyun.”

Changkyun picks up the bunch of flowers and bows his head to smell them. A fluffy bit of pollen sticks to the tip of his nose. He wipes it away and grins. It’s undeniably charming, if not a bit mismatched. He throws a couple dollars into his tip jar and leaves, untucking a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. The bell rings behind him.

Jooheon closes up.

 

ii.

The second time Jooheon sees him, Changkyun buys peony gardenias. Big, white, frilly things that smell sweet like Febreze air freshener. The third time, it’s Gerbera daisies and chrysanthemums. The fourth time, lilies. Jooheon supplies him with flowers for birthdays, holidays, thank you gifts, and even his cousin’s wedding. They exchange small talk mostly, and Jooheon becomes a part of his life in one way or another.

The fifth time Jooheon sees him, he buys carnations again. White ones this time.

Changkyun smiles when he spots Jooheon behind the counter. Jooheon ties his green apron around his neck a little tighter, straightens his name tag, and leans across the register to adjust the knick-knacks on display.

Changkyun walks over to him, a bouquet of half a dozen gripped in his hand. His ripped, black skinny jeans hug his hips just right, and his Beastie Boys hoodie is bunched up around his face, cheeks pink from the cold, one earbud in and the other out. Jooheon has kept track of his music selection from what little he can eavesdrop in on; punk, grunge, alternative, some 80s dream pop mixed in. This time, heavy metal music blasts through on full volume.

“Apologizing again?” Jooheon asks, pointing to the flowers.

“No, not this time,” Changkyun says and laughs. “That relationship didn’t work out anyways. I guess he didn’t like the flowers much, just the sex.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault,” Changkyun assures. “I was never good at romance anyways.” He tips the carnations towards Jooheon. “They’re for my grandma. It’s her birthday tomorrow.”

“Good choice,” Jooheon says and begins to ring him up.

The song over the speakers changes. The airy guitar reminds Jooheon of days spent in the summer, lazing in the grass and picking dandelions in the park.

“Hey, I love this song,” Changkyun says, removing his other earbud to get a better listen.

“You like this kind of stuff?”

It takes Jooheon by surprise, but he supposes he shouldn’t. Despite his bad boy appearance, Changkyun seems to buy flowers for people more often than anyone else Jooheon knows.

“Yeah, who picks the music here?” Changkyun asks.

“I do,” Jooheon says and his stomach flutters. “Thanks for noticing. Most people don’t.”

Changkyun leans over the counter. “I’m in a band, y’know,” he says with a coprophagous grin

Jooheon snorts, grabbing a roll of brown paper from the cupboard and cutting a sizeable piece off. He turns back to the counter. Changkyun is raising his eyebrows at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“Are you hitting on me?” Jooheon asks.

“No, no, of course not. ” Changkyun pauses for a moment, then submits. “Well, yeah, kind of. What gave it away?”

Jooheon shrugs. “It’s just when someone tells you they’re in a band, they’re usually trying to make a move on you,” he says and packages Changkyun’s flowers the same as before with deft fingers. He ties a polka-dotted tag around the twine string.

Changkyun takes the flowers from him. “Well, is it working?”

“A for effort I guess,” Jooheon says. “I thought you said you weren’t good at romance?”

Jooheon grabs the broom from the back to sweep up some of the discarded petals on the floor.

“Who said anything about romance?” Changkyun says. “Are you closing up soon?”

Jooheon checks the clock on the far wall. “In about thirty minutes. Why?”

“Why don’t you close up shop early?” Changkyun says. “Take a walk with me. Your boss doesn’t need to know.”

He straightens, hands nonchalantly placed on his hips, holding Jooheon’s gaze. Jooheon wants to roll his eyes.

“I happen to like romance,” Jooheon says and shakes his head. He motions flippantly towards the store. “I work at a flower shop for God’s sake.”

“Just as friends then,” Changkyun offers, but his expression hasn’t changed. He’s still grinning that shit-eating grin.

“Alright,” Jooheon says and grabs his coat. “But if you talk about your band the whole time, I’m leaving.”

“Alright, it’s a deal.”

Outside, the grass is damp with melted slush. Changkyun cradles his flowers in the crook of his arm. He is especially gently with them, fingers as light as a lover’s touch. He adjusts the petals just right.

“What made you want to be a florist?” Changkyun asks.

Jooheon gets this question a lot. His answer is just as cliché as people expect, but it leaves customers with a grin on their faces most of the time. Sometimes he likes to play it up, claim that a bully of his in high school was allergic to pollen, but the truth is much less exciting.

“My mom loved gardening when I was growing up,” Jooheon says with a shrug. “She used to call me her honey bee. I guess one thing led to another.”

Changkyun smiles. “Sounds like you were born for it.”

“I guess so.”

They walk side by side, in step with each other as if they’ve been friends for years. Jooheon listens to the drip-drop of slushy water falling from the eavestroughs and splatting against the pavement as they pass by a strip of department stores and various local shops and duck under awnings. The cold winter air a bitter whip against Jooheon’s cheeks.

They pass by the window of a sweets shop. The display is dressed with reds and pinks, heart shaped boxes of several different confections that are piped with raspberry cream or dusted with coconut, but Jooheon figures that the shiny and perfectly molded chocolates on display are plastic. It’s halfway to February, and with February comes Valentine’s Day.

“Tell me something,” Jooheon begins and Changkyun looks at him with half-lidded eyes, his expression unrevealing, yet somehow warm. “If you’re not a love kind of guy, why do you buy flowers all the time?”

Changkyun shrugs, hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket. “The cashier is kind of cute.”

Jooheon laughs.

 

  
iii.

“Friends?” Changkyun asks one day as Jooheon is closing up shop.

Jooheon snorts, smiling down at his feet where he’s sweeping up a smattering of pink petals in the storage room. He considers Changkyun’s proposition. It feels like something a third grader might say, back in elementary school when you had to declare anything and everything. As a kid, relationships never naturally faded in and out, labelling themselves as they went or going unlabelled until their demise. There was an unabashed excitement when you declared your friend as _your_ friend. Even if you had played together for the better part of the year, it wasn’t truly friendship until you told all your classmates in the most outright and obnoxious way possible.

“Just friends,” Jooheon clarifies.

Changkyun smirks. He leans against the counter, one foot crossed over the other. “You’re going to look pretty stupid when you fall in love with me,” he says and it’s so utterly romantic comedy-esque that Jooheon wants to puke.

But at the same time, his stomach churns in a winged, antennaed insect sort of way. He catches himself before he reveals any change in disposition, focusing on the broom in his grip.

“Sure,” Jooheon says. “Keep telling yourself that.”

 

  
iv.

On February 14th, Changkyun buys roses.

Jooheon never expects the pang of jealousy he feels when Changkyun reaches for them in the cooler. They’re blood red like mulberry wine.

It’s raining outside. The drops plink against the shop windows like little glass beads. Jooheon’s fingers feel clammy as he arranges his bouquet of amaryllises. Changkyun approaches the front counter, looking just as unaffected and nonchalant as usual. His grip around the roses is slack.

“Date?” Jooheon asks, and he tries his best to keep his voice as steady as possible.

Changkyun rubs his neck, oddly sheepish about it, and for a brief moment Jooheon wonders if the flowers are for him. That moment passes quickly when Changkyun picks out a cheesy Valentine’s Day card from the rack display, plucks one of Jooheon’s pen from a cup beside the register, and starts scrawling something down inside in inky chicken scratch.

_To Minji._

Jooheon chides himself for dreaming up something so silly. He starts to ring Changkyun up at the register.

“Yeah, it’s this girl I’ve been seeing for a couple weeks,” Changkyun says and Jooheon has to physically stop the muscles in his face from frowning. “I was going to surprise her at work.”

“Sounds pretty romantic for someone who doesn’t do romance,” Jooheon says.

Changkyun looks at him curiously, as if he’s picked up the hint of distain in Jooheon’s voice. “Well, I spend a lot of time in here these days,” Changkyun says and it’s almost defensive. “Maybe you’ve rubbed off on me.”

Jooheon manages a laugh. Some of the tension he thinks he might have felt clears from the air, but instead it rises to fog his head.

Later, Jooheon is locking up the cash register when the bell tinkles and the door swings open, wind blustering inside. The winter weather is finicky, and the rain has turned into a wet and chunky snowfall.

“Sorry, I’m just about to close,” Jooheon says without looking up, still fiddling with his keys.

“Jooheon, it’s me.”

Jooheon peers around the corner. Changkyun is standing in the doorway with the bouquet of roses gripped tight in his fist. The petals are wilting.

“What’s your return policy?” he grumbles. He walks inside and throws the bouquet onto the counter with little care.

“Did it not work out?” Jooheon asks, eyebrows furrowing.

Changkyun shakes his head. “Turns out she’s screwing her boss,” he says. “Maybe work wasn’t the best place to surprise her.”

Jooheon stares at him blankly. Changkyun’s need for exclusivity, although unspoken, puzzles him. Maybe Jooheon has pegged him down wrong all this time.

“I’m sorry,” Jooheon says.

“Love is pointless,” Changkyun sighs, picking up a loose daisy petal from the counter and inspecting it. “Kind of like flowers. They’re pretty to look at, but not very fun to clean up after.”

He rolls the petal between his calloused fingers and lets it fall to the ground, then sweeps it away with his Converse sneaker. Jooheon keeps his eyes on the petal, crunched up and discarded beneath the shelf with the dust bunnies.

Maybe Changkyun’s bout of romance was just a fluke, or maybe his lack thereof was an act all along. Jooheon flips back and forth between the two like he’s flipping through pages in a book, except that book is in a whole different language that Jooheon can’t understand.

“I didn’t know you were such a cynic,” Jooheon says after a moment.

Changkyun shrugs. “Only when I feel like it.”

 

  
v.

This time, Changkyun doesn’t buy flowers at all.

Jooheon is about to close up when Changkyun steps inside the shop, his hair dusted with snowflakes in the same manner as the first time Jooheon met him in December. By this point in time, he knows that this last minute customer is Changkyun before he sees his face. He recognizes his footfall, his combat boots squeaking against the tiled floor, and his gentle way of shutting the door, knowing damn well that if it slams it’ll startle Jooheon this late at night.

“What’s your poison?” Jooheon asks as Changkyun strolls over to him.

He pretends he’s a bartender in some swanky hotel, serving up liquored concoctions instead of bouquets of bright red roses and baby’s breath. Changkyun is his most loyal customer, the one who comes in to vent about his problems and keeps an ever-growing tab open. He’s oh-so-mysterious, but there’s a warmth about him. Unfortunately, he’s a shitty tipper.

“Long day,” Changkyun says. He hops up to sit his ass square in the middle of the counter, his legs swinging beneath him. It’s that same coy innocence that always throws Jooheon off. “You?”

“Not too bad,” Jooheon says with a tight smile.

Truthfully, he’s been thinking about Changkyun all day, but now that he’s here in front of him, Jooheon feels almost too shy to hold eye contact for too long. Jooheon focuses on checking and rechecking the pile of receipts in front of him.

“Playing hard to get?” Changkyun asks.

“Didn’t know I was playing to be gotten,” Jooheon says with a raised eyebrow.

This game of flirtation is normal between them, the push and the pull, like a sloppy game of tug of war where there are no winners and no prizes to be won. They decided in the beginning that they were friends and that’s all they were going to be. That was Jooheon’s choice, but it’s a choice he’s beginning to recant.

Changkyun nudges him playfully in the shoulder. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

“I do?”

Changkyun snorts. “You’re easy to read,” he says. “What’s up?”

Jooheon thinks for a moment, chewing on his words. “If we dated, hypothetically, would you be the kind of boyfriend to buy me chocolates and shit?”

Changkyun bites his lower lip to quell a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. They upturn just enough to flash his dimples for a quarter of a second. Jooheon feels his stomach barrel-roll.

“Hypothetically? Yeah, sure,” Changkyun says, and his tone is light. “What kind?” His expression turns serious for comedic effect, eyebrows low over his eyes. “Hypothetically, of course.”

“Peanut butter,” Jooheon says and it’s a little too eager, but he’s lost himself in the prospect. “But I like plain milk chocolate, or mint. What about flowers?”

“Whatever you want,” Changkyun offers. A full blown grin is spreading across his face. “But if you want it to be a surprise, I’ll have to help out your competition a bit.”

Jooheon smiles and drops his gaze, his cheeks growing pink like the delicate petals on an azalea. “I thought romance was pointless.”

Changkyun shrugs. “I’m versatile,” he says. “Why do you I think I come by here so often, asshole?”

“Because the cashier is cute?”

Changkyun reaches over and interlaces their fingers together. “Absolutely, and nothing about that is hypothetical.”

Something swells in Jooheon’s chest, warm and bright and all consuming. It spreads all the way from the crown of his head down to his toes, pouring into every nook and cranny, syrupy like honey.

**Author's Note:**

> apologies that this isn't super good !
> 
> this is actually a very very early draft for a fic i'm working on. the concept is slightly similar, but the writing is completely different so i wanted to post this as its own fic. i hope you like it somewhat !


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